Home Forums Hunting & Shooting AR and Tactical Rifles Worst AR 15 on the market and why?

We always talk about our best guns, anyone have a "worst gun" story they want to talk about?

My personal worst was a Bushmaster purchased during the first AR Ban, where no flash hider and bayonet lugs were allowed, I don't know how they managed to do it but the rear sight had to be run all the way over to the right to get the gun on paper at 50 yards with M193 ammunition. It featured a standard FSB.

ever use a Superior Arms?

That's easy....Carbon 15

Wow! What's the story on that one?

I built a Varmint rifle using a Superior Arms lower. I actually liked it. Came with a set screw under the pistol grip that let me eliminate the trigger take up.

My guess is it had something to do with the gas tube. I don't see one.

Carbon 15's were pretty bad, plastic upper by the way

That doesn't look quite right!

If I recall correctly, that's the one where the fat guy sat on it.
Plastic almost everything.

Pretty much anything polymer..the Carbon 15 being one of the worst of the worst.

Diamondback Arms...just bad.

Hess/Vulcan/Blackthorn...just really, really bad.

Olympic Arms...better than they used to be, but thats a pretty low bar.

I built one up using one of their lowers. It goes bang when I pull the trigger. I do understand their complete rifles had issues.

kwg

Husband of one of my co-workers bought a new Carbon-14 and found that his did not have any of those spirally things in the barrel. Only other time I have saw a rifle without rifling was in a returned Danish M1 Garand. You could drop a M2 Ball cartridge down the muzzle up to the shoulder.

Bet that Danish Garand still went bang every time

If we are going by worst gun of personal experience, i would have to say a Raven .25cal semiauto pistol. I took a sledgehammer to it to make sure no one ever had to bet thier life on it actually working.

Ah yes. Parts is parts...

anyone that doesn't perform up to your desires.

Good shooters come really cheap these days. Some work, most work, some fail, I can't say I'm aware of any brand that most fail.

RE carbon/poly uppers and lowers... if you UNDERSTAND what you are buying, and the limits to hold a plastic gun to, then life is much better.

For others, they need to spend 3000 on a name brand top of the line, to get accuracy that could be parted together in an evening with a hair of knowledge for 1500 or so...

My first AR was built many years ago with an Olympic lower. A significant amount of filing was required to get the fire control group to function. At the time, I thought the problem was just out of spec trigger parts. I recently installed a modular trigger only to find that the receiver holes are off-location. I had to use a roll pin in the front hole.

On the bright side, I did get to learn a about the FCG function through fitting the original.

Worst I've ever owned was a BCM (Bravo Company.)


4" groups out of a MK12 style upper and two weeks of emails and no answer phone calls to finally get a reply, "That's unusual, most customers are reporting MOA with that barrel. Keep shooting it and maybe it'll get better." The emails clearly stated over 400 rounds had been shot out of the rifle.

Customer support sometimes can make or break the over all ownership experience. I got a garbage product at a premium price.

This, 100%.

Over-hyped marketing can do the same thing, but a lot of companies do it and people buy into it anyway.

Adding a set screw to reduce take up is pretty simple to do, especially if the maker threaded the grip screw hole all the way. Otherwise, threading can be a bit of a chore, but is doable.